Second post for the beta itself…
Been playing it for some days… At least figured out the gameplay flow…
For Dawn Of War players, they should get used to it pretty fast using the same system; while in the meantime it means a lot of bashes from hardcore Command and Conquer old timers, the feelings are lost. No more tiberium harvesting, no more money, no base building (unless Defense class), and there is unit cap determined by command point.
The beta only included the online Domination match, which is from 1v1 to 5v5. GDI and Nod showdown as usual, divided into 3 classes each which is Offense, Defense, and Support. Offense gets the mainstream units, such as Buggy, Bikes, Titan, Scorpion, Avatar, even to the mighty Mastodon (Mammoth Mk II). Defense gets to build defensive structures aka turrets, superweapon, and get access to infantry division. Support get access to air units, as well as support powers. Offense and Support start with Crawler, where Support Crawler is airborne allowing flexibility. Defense Crawler is the MCV. Crawler may only spawn within starting area, and may move around and deploy anywhere. Crawler produce respective class units faster by 25% in starting area, but you won’t use it much as you need to move around.
Domination gameplay requires a team first to get 2500 points to win, by capturing control nodes. There are 5 control nodes on any playable map. By moving units near control node will slowly initiate the capture. Having more units nearby speed up the capture. Having a greater value of units in the middle of battle with enemy for control node also grants your side the capture. And of course, having more nodes your team score also raise faster. Other than control node, destroying enemy units add score to your team, score added determined by the command point (think of food in Warcraft/Starcraft) of that unit, such as GDI Mastodon costs 10 command point, when you destroy one, you get 10 points to score.
In a typical 5v5 match, players get 50 command point each, which can roughly count down to about 8-10 units, since most units are 3-5 command point. Pretty few? Yes… Time for spammers to learn something.
What is so not good about the system is leveling… Ranging from level 1 to level 20… The higher the level, the more units and upgrades you can access to. So as in this beta, you could see sometimes a team full with level 1 to 5, while the other side having 1 or 2 level 20 players… And in the game, those new players being so low morale that they are actually fighting off Kodiak, Mastodon, Avatar etc etc with only bikes and pitbull etc etc… Which is really stupid system… And another add on to that, no tutorial available in the beta, so new players find themselves clueless in the game and getting scolded.
Well as for today… Played 3 won 3… With one of the match I being the highest score contributor, despite I am only level 6. And another great comeback match where our team losing 441 score to GDI 1857 score at a point, we manage to twist back and won 2500 to 2017 points, pretty big turn over eh?
And yes… I don’t play GDI yet… Still level 1…
